Remember that time we had together last month? When I sidled onto your computer screen with my April Update and cooed into your mind that FODapalooza II was June 11? It was a lie. A cold, dirty lie brought into an unfair world by a cruel typographical error. You want the truth? Well, despite what Jack Nicholson may say, you can handle it. (And he's not invited to FODapalooza II because he's all hoyty-toyty and didn't want me to have his e-mail address or to be his Facebook friend.)
The party's a day earlier than that. Enough with the intro. On with the update!
Join me for FODapalooza II! (The day after Love! That 4-Letter Word takes its final bow at The Algonquin!)
WHEN: Tuesday, June 10, 2008
6:30 PM to 9:00 PM
WHERE: People, in the Loft upstairs
163 Allen Street, New York, NY
See below for directions or go to the Google Map
COST: No cover, cash bar
RSVP: Requested, but not required.
RSVP for FODapalooza II! here
Come join me and meet fellow FODs (Friends/Family of Doug) at the second FODapalooza! You are the best people in the world and should really know each other. You are charming. You are successful. You are quietly centered in that powerful kind of way. You are networking goldmines. Your succulent abdominal muscles are tightening even as you read this. (Sorry, Mom.) You are also paying for your own drinks but they are very good.
This second gathering of the FODs from all walks of life shall converge in the upstairs lounge, which we will have all to ourselves.
Directions
People is just a block and a half below the intersection of First Avenue and Houston (the east end of the F and V train).
Show, Show, then Show. Three Shows in a Row.
The Next Show
June will start off with Love! That 4-Letter Word, in which I'm playing a lovelorn psychologist going through his mid-life crisis. Naturally, it's a musical.
Book, Music, & Lyrics by Deborah Vines, Produced by Bill Sharp, Directed by Deb Failla, Choreographed by Andrea McCullough, Generally Managed by R. Erin Craig and La Vie Productions, Marketingly Consulted by Brady Amoon, with Musical Direction by Lenny Babbish and Stage Management by Melissa Gregus.
Cast: Melissa D'Amico, Doug Shapiro, Kate Wood Riley, Carl Anthony Tramon, Johanna Weller-Fahy, Heather Stricker-Dispensa, Scott Sowinski, and Christopher Totten. Here's the information:
WHEN: June 4-7 and June 9, 2008
June 4-7 8:00 pm; June 9 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm
WHERE: The Kaufman Theater at The Algonquin Theater,
(NOT the hotel in Midtown)
123 East 24th Street, in Manhattan between Park Avenue South & Lexington Avenue. Here's the Google Map
COST: Tickets, priced $18, available by calling (212) 868-4444, or visiting www.smarttix.com.
(Industry and members of AEA get in free.)
The Next Next Show
I will be returning to 1950's Russia on my birthday. Prospect Theater Company will be bringing back a concert version of Iron Curtain for this year's 10th Anniversary benefit.
WHEN: Monday, June 30, 2008 (My birthday!)
(Also the one-year anniversary of Jeff Bratcher and Alexandra de Suze! Surely you've heard of Alexandra de Suze!)
6:30 - 7:30pm Cocktail Reception
7:30pm Concert Reading of Iron Curtain
Post-Show Party with Artists
WHERE: The Engleman Recital Hall, Baruch Performing Arts Center
55 Lexington Ave (at 25th St.) NYC. Here's the Google Map
COST: $100 tickets - Cocktail Reception, Concert, Post-Show Party
$60 tickets - Concert & Post-Show Party
available by calling (212) 352-3101, or visiting www.ProspectTheater.org.
An uproarious musical comedy set during Broadway's Golden Age of the 1950's! Follow the adventures of an unsuccessful composer / lyricist team as they are kidnapped by the KGB and taken to the USSR to ghost-write communist propaganda musicals. Will they choose fame or freedom? Don't miss this encore concert presentation of Prospect's 2006 sold-out production.
Book by Susan DiLallo * Lyrics by Peter Mills * Music by Stephen Weiner.
The morning after this gig, three of us will hop on a train and head up to Annandale-on-Hudson to begin rehearsals for the next next next show...
The Next Next Next Show...
Remember when I said three of us will be hopping a train the morning after Iron Curtain to start our next gig? This is it! I'll be playing Gilhooley in OF THEE I SING at The Richard B Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College.
WHEN: August 1-10 2008
(Click this link for the times on each day. They vary a lot.)
WHERE: The Richard B Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College,
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
It's a college. Street addresses don't apply in their universe. Here's the downloadable map and driving directions.
COST: Tickets, priced $45, available by calling (845) 758-7900, or by clicking here for their online box office.
"Love Is Sweeping the Country" in this delirious lampoon of campaign shenanigans centered on the romantic entanglements of bachelor candidate John P. Wintergreen. This production of Of Thee I Sing is jam-packed with the wholesome goodness of FODs! Not only is this my second go-around with the wonderful Will Pomerantz as director, it will also include the characterysingydanciness of FODs Marcus Neville and Rich Silverstein (also in Iron Curtain), Andy Gale, Chad Harlow and Nikol Wolf!
Dougbytes
***How do you like this sentence...I just got back from teaching Shakespeare in St. Thomas. It's true! FOD Bethany Burgess-Smith runs the Pistarckle Theater Company, which hosted a Shakespeare festival for students. Boston theatre vixen/FOD Celeste McClain and I were the MCs for the students' Shakespeare scenes. After the break, the two of us worked our funky Bard thangs with Demetrius/Helena from A Midsummer-night's Dream along with some other sonnets, monologues, and demonstrations.
***For those of you interested in the Canadian advertising scene, I voiced the most recent Creative Conversations podcast for The Norman Agency. Just to put it out there, Jim and Becky Norman are wonderful people with whom to work.
***I participated in a reading of a new play with Stageplays Theatre Company. Old Songs Remembered by Allen Davis III features three vignettes which all take place in a Jewish Funeral Parlour. I played a young, womanizing future head of a company who is rendered helpless by his very dramatic Jewish mother. If you are one of my female relatives and are reading this, of course I wasn't using you for my acting work.
***Memorial Day weekend, I'll be recording the demo of the Hard Rock musical DethFest (book & lyrics by Laurie Lefkowitz, music by Scott Louis), a modern-day parallel of the Orpheus and Euridice myth. I will be voicing Charon the snake and one of the three doggy heads of Cerberus. Then I shall proceed to rock out the back up vocals in a manner befitting the piece.
***I continue to do more great gigs for NYU Students, including a photography project for Brian Huselton about a cake delivery guy and a sound/image project for Adam Raichilson in which I played both roles in the dialogue between the condemned revolutionary and the tyrant who has ordered his execution.
***Every Thursday at 7:00 a.m. Jill Burk and I continue to be the voices of New York Times for InTouch Radio reading news and periodicals for the visually impaired over the air.
***I continue to sing through my Sunday mornings at The Madison Avenue Baptist Church with choir director Paul Stephan, singers Renee Jarvis, Julia Mintzer and Christopher Preston Thompson, and the fabulous Reverend Susan Sparks. The sermons are now podcast! (The choir is not.) By the way, you know who we're trying to get to fill in for Julia while she's away at her summer internship? Alexandra de Suze! Surely you've heard of Alexandra de Suze!
Please Don't Panic! I'm as busy as a bottle of patchouli at an Indigo Girls concert, but for you, I'll find the time. I've worked Shakespeare in the Islands, voiced podcasts in Canada, and sung serpents in the underworld this month. We can create something great together, too.
And now the monthly Two Items of Interest for FODs...
Draw or animate DougToons!
The first installment of DougToons! has been penned by the incomparable Crystal Skillman and voiced by me at Silver Hollow Audio, with producer (and fine voiceover talent in his own right) Brett Barry. Now that it is in the can, my very talented graphic designer and animator have a great deal of other work on their plates. I'm looking for a few more graphic designer/cartoonists and cell/computer animators to add to my team. The work we create would be for each other's websites to display our cartoon fortitude! Drop me an e-mail if you or someone you know would like to join my toon team!
Great resource for my NYC area actor pals...
I've just renewed my yearly subscription to BroadwayDemo.com
David Libby and Tina Marie Casamento have created a demo/website package to showcase music theatre actors. Tina Marie coaches you on the song, David plays and then does the ProTools and website magic. For a limited time, they’re offering a discount on demos from referrals. Performers who mention me when they contact David and Tina Marie can buy their website/demo starter package for $245 (a $50 discount), provided they book their recording session prior to July 1, 2008. Contact them at either (917) 414-5403 or David@BroadwayDemo.com
I’ve recorded my demo with them and you can check the result at Doug’s BroadwayDemo.com Profile. In addition, I'm composing this blog on a train back from an audition in Philadelphia with People's Light and Theatre Company. Tina Marie and David coached me on this audition, and I received applause for my song. I'm feeling pretty groovy right now, and I owe a good deal of it to them.
Life is good here. Our building has repaired the leaky air conditioner which was torturing our downstairs neighbor and repaired the water damage that had been bleeding through our walls from the outside. With that complete, my valiant husband has been waging a war against the apartment armed with only a paintbrush and a can of lavender paint. We loved the St. Thomas vacation (snorkeling! fruity beverages! a one-eyed waitress!) and also attended the book signing of composer/author/aerobics instructor/go-go dancer Joel Derfner's newest release: Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever. I'm about a quarter of the way through the book and loving it.
I am still running in the mornings, but remember if you see me laying on the curb somewhere, proceed immediately to Billy's Bakery and get me a cupcake.
Take some breathing time for yourself, tell me your birthday, honor our soldiers on Memorial Day, remember to come to FODapalooza II, and thanks for being in my life. Please let me know what's going on in yours!
As Always,
Doug Shapiro
(917) 929-0998
www.dougshapiro.com
doug@dougshapiro.com
Doug's LinkedIn Profile
Doug's MySpace profile
and, oy vey, I'm also on Facebook
Doug's song stylings on BroadwayDemo.com
